Monthly Archives: August 2015

As its my intention to create art that is uplifting and joyful I wasn’t content with drawing and painting faces that weren’t smiling and happy. In Art Challenge 35 I progressed my ability and understand of creating faces both using paint and digitally. You can see that Art Challenge at this link.

Art Challenge 35 – Creating CharactersI read up and also watched a great YouTube video on how to draw smiling faces and set to painting in my studio, I was determined to crack this challenge. I started with a series of buff circles, which I then left to dry, which I realised was a mistake as then the paint didn’t blend in the same way when I started to add the shadows and highlights and then the features.

As you’ll see some of them were terrible, but as I started to add the detail they started to look at me from the page and sometimes reminded me in some ways of people I have known. I guess as I didn’t have a picture in mind of a face I didn’t know what would emerge. This could have felt scary, and equally sharing these early creations could feel scary but , with the year I’ve had with my knee injury and op, being afraid of something like that, with no danger or physical pain or injury now seems laughable. Once I felt the faces were as good as I was going to achieve in that siting I added hair. I do enjoy painting hair, and seem to have a thing about coloured hair as my previous creations show. My husband says it’s something I secretly wish that I had done when was younger, had crazy coloured hair. Hmmmm…. No comment (smiling). (Sorry that they’re upside down).

What I like about my characters hair is that it’s always salon freh and they can have colours that wouldn’t work on real hair and would look awful when it started to grow out. So on with the wild hair. This character was the happiest most human of the bunch and I was pleased with her vibrancy.
So I put her in a sunny seaside location using a pic I created from a Brighton bandstand.

Then added a mantra – ‘Lean into your joy’ is a message I am both applying for my life just now and am encouraging a great friend to do the same. It’s a great way to increase enjoyment of life and open up new opportunities when you’re not sure which path to follow or what the steps should be.

So having created a smiling character in paint I wanted to create a smiling character digitally. I began the picture yesterday on the Thomson Airways flight back from Ibiza where we had a lovely holiday and I found inspiration in the Hippie Market of Las Dalias. There I met the artist Anima Delfica and couldn’t resist buying a canvas of a mermaid with the underwater sea life, rolling waves and smiling shining sun. I love snorkelling and swimming with the fish so the picture had to come home with me.

When turbulence hit the aircraft I carried on creating as it was a distraction for the passenger next to me who was a little concerned by the bumpiness. A number of my characters have wings and so does this one and again the crazy coloured hair. I added my joy with fish, flowers, love and the sun into the wing detail which then also became part of the design. I do love the Pixelmator app and am finding more and more great features as I learn with it.

It has been suggested to name characters and as the thought came to mind The name Miranda popped yo my head. So here is Miranda. I have just had a look at the name meaning online and it seems appopriate for her.

As I have followed a more creative path this year it felt appropriate to put art into the cards I have given this year? ere are some of the designs from the earlier ones to the most recent. The birthdays and life events were great occasions to show my appreciation for friends and family by creating bespoke cards.

I gained cionfidence and was more able to use my art And paper cutting skills more. Id like to create some notecards from artworks and get them printed.

You’re invited to have a look at any of the previous 35 Art Challenges, my personal favourites are

I often share artworks in a morning on my Facebook page to inspire and hopefully shine some colour into the start of the day.

Here is today’s artwork, which I’m pleased with as my ability improves I am liking what I am creating. I don’t know what the end result will be when I start so the creations are a surprise and often a lovely one as I feel I am getting closer to finding my artistic groove.

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I hope you have a great Friday, thanks so much for viewing my blog and to each one of my subscribers I am extremely grateful for your support. Enjoy. Kim x